L46, L47 and N84

In the very ambitious renewal of the truck product programme that Volvo carried out in the early 1960s, no resources were left for the further development of the medium-duty N trucks introduced in the mid 50s. In mechanical terms, they were very similar to the trucks developed just before and after World War II.

Improvements under the skin
But in one way it would be incorrect to term the L46/L47 family of trucks as 'medium-duty', since these trucks were very often required to perform astonishingly heavy duties, especially in countries remote from Sweden where these trucks were being produced.

Continuous improvement and modernisation took place under the skin of these trucks. The new L46 'Starke'/L47 'Raske' trucks that succeeded the L37 truck in the early 1960s were available with power steering and improved Volvo safety cabs, something which contributed to improved active and passive safety.

Upgraded with more powerful engines
The heavy transport operations which these trucks were often asked to perform were also facilitated by the introduction of slightly more powerful engine versions, with or without turbocharging (the latter only available for the L47 truck).

This truck was even included in the very modern 'System 8' truck family as the 'N84', basically with the same specification but now with an even more powerful engine with increased capacity, one factor which meant that this old-fashioned truck could be found in the global Volvo truck product programme well into the 1970s.

The end of an era
In 1972, however, this truck family (introduced in 1954) had finally become a little too old-fashioned even for markets favouring traditional trucks. Since then, no conventional medium-duty trucks have been produced by Volvo.